Hi Sars,

I’m not quite sure what to do with myself at the moment
and writing to you seemed like a better idea than staying in bed and
crying all day. Though I may still do that.

Do you know what’s worse than the end of a seven-year relationship
that you thought was pretty solid? Reading about the end of said
relationship in a Vine letter when you had no idea that he was
unhappy. At work. Less than a week before the two of you leave for
Amsterdam for a week. Thanks, Mr. Escape Hatch, your signature was an
especially nice touch.

I suppose this is both a PSA and a question, though I don’t expect you
to know the answers any more than I do. First the PSA — please, ladies
and gentlemen, do not write to internet advice columns that you know
your partner reads expressing your desire to break up with them.
Especially if you’ve never expressed that you were unhappy at all.
This is possibly the most passive-aggressive way ever to end a
relationship.

And now the question: how does one start to pick up the pieces in this
sort of situation? How do you begin to heal when you are just wasting
time at work one day only to find out that your partner doesn’t love
you, doesn’t even like you, has been miserable for years and doesn’t
even think enough of you to tell you to your face? And you thought
things were okay. Not all hearts and flowers, no, but not over.
Definitely not over.

Sincerely,
Totally Blindsided

Dear Blind,

Yeah, this isn’t the first time that this has happened; it isn’t even the first time this year, and I’ll tell you, getting put in the middle of these situations is not shit I need.Folks: I’m happy to offer counsel, obviously, because that’s the point of the column, but make sure you know who’s in the sandbox before you start kicking.Okay?Because that’s not my job.Don’t stick your hand up my ass and use me all puppet-style “I want to break up.”Do it yourselves.

With that said…I stand by my advice to Mr. Hatch, but here’s my advice to you: There are no pieces to pick up.This is a guy who kind of acted like a victim of circumstance when all he really had to do was tell you the truth, and now on top of losing a long-term relationship, you feel humiliated and like everything you knew was wrong.There are things you can come back from in relationships, but I just don’t think behavior like this is one of them; if he knew you would read The Vine, there’s just…a lack of compassion there, and a self-absorption, and these aren’t things you can “work on.”He’s not the man you thought he was, and that sucks, but there’s nothing for it.Pack your things and go.

People.I’m always always ALWAYS telling you, talk to each other.Say it, even if it’s going to suck.Get it out there and deal with it.I know it’s hard, I know there’s going to be crying, I know nobody wants to hurt anyone else’s feelings or hear “I don’t love you that way,” I know, trust me, but — this is what happens when you don’t talk to each other.Because speaking frankly isn’t just about making yourself feel better.It’s about trusting and respecting the people in your life.

Dear Sarah,

Hi.Let me just start off by saying: I loved your response to the
defender-of-racists on 4/19.I wish I were able to correctly identify the
types of racism that I have to hear every day, and call the racist on it so
eloquently.

Which brings me to my question: what do I do about racist assholes in my
classes?This will be half-rant, half-question, so…sorry ahead of time.

I’m a high school senior up in the Midwest.I live in the biggest city in
my state, but even the biggest city is awfully small (about 100,000 people).
People here like to pride themselves on their “small-town values,” but
really, they mostly just have small minds.I’m in a resource class with a
bunch of guys; in fact, I’m the only girl.These guys make the typical
jokes you’d expect from supposed “bad” kids (that’s how they like to think
of themselves, anyway) — the homophobia, the misogyny, the sexual harassment,
and so on.I’ve realized that the homophobia is here to stay, and I usually
just point out that for people who are so afraid of homosexuality they sure
like to touch each other a lot, which does the trick.

It’s the racism I cannot stand.It’s only perpetuated by about two people,
but the teachers in the classroom do absolutely nothing about it (along with
the other offensive behavior I listed earlier).They (the boys) tell the
worst racist jokes I’ve ever heard in my life, mostly about African-American
people, but also Mexican-Americans and Native Americans (I’m part Native
American, myself).They use racial slurs (the n-word and everything else
you can imagine — jokes about lynching, owning black people) like it’s
going out of style and it drives me INSANE.

I’ve seriously thought about getting up and HITTING these guys in the face
with the stapler.My boyfriend (who’s just joined the army, unfortunately,
so I can’t ask him for help) is half-black, identifies as black, and I’m
afraid to even mention it because I’ll get horrible lewd comments about his
sexual performance.They also seem to think that all black people fill a
certain “role” — they all like rap music!They all speak in ebonics (my
boyfriend likes rap, especially Katastrophe and Talib Kweli, but he speaks
better English than these guys do), they all must be good at sports, they’re
all poor.I’ve nearly started crying once or twice because they make me so
angry and I can’t do anything about it.

I hate.Them.So much.And the teachers do nothing about it, because
“boys will be boys,” or something, except no.I know that this isn’t how
boys have to be, because for fuck’s sake — the boyfriend?He’s only a year
or two years older than most of these guys, and he knows how to act right
(also, he’s wonderful and I miss him terribly).There’s also a younger boy
in the class who is very nice and polite, but I can already see these guys
corrupting him.

What can I do to make them stop?I’d like it best if they just left me
alone and didn’t say anything racist again, but if I can’t have it all, I
just want the racism to stop.I can insult them until I’m blue in the face
(and believe me, I do try, especially when they hit on/harass me and then
claim I “like the attention”), but it doesn’t seem to work.Seriously
trying to explain why it’s offensive gets “aww, look, a girl, let’s pretend
to listen to her because she’s wearing eyeliner” — yeah, they laugh in my
face.Girls apparently can’t be offended!They’re just there to look
pretty.Vomit.

What can I do?!Please, I need someone sane to help me figure this out.

Sincerely,
Trapped In A Klan Meeting

Dear Trapped,

If you really want it to stop, start tattling, and don’t quit until you get some results.It will make your life somewhat unpleasant, probably, in the short term, but I can’t imagine that teachers are allowed to permit hate speech in the classroom environment.So, you might do some research on what the statutes are there, but know this: if it gets out that the administration of the school let that kind of thing go on, it’s going to be a huge embarrassment to the school board (as it should be), so you do have some leverage here if you’ve got the stones to use it.

Write down every slur and racist joke (or better yet, tape-record it with a Dictaphone), present the teachers with the evidence, and say, “This is making me uncomfortable.I want you to put a stop to it, please.”If they don’t, go over their heads to the principal and mention that, you know, you’d hate to have to involve the school board.Or the press.

Enlist your parents’ support, because if you do have to take on anyone besides your teachers, it could get kind of ugly and you’ll want some backup.But honestly, there’s turning a blind eye to a few spitwads (do kids make spitwads anymore?I’m old) and belching contests, but if I had even used a word that rhymed with the n-word back in high school, I’d have been suspended.And then my parents would have tied me to an anthill and changed the locks, because: come on.Just, no.

You’re in the right here.How far you want to press that point is up to you, but I think you’d be doing everyone who has to deal with these nimrods a favor if you found a way to put paid to it.

This is a grammar question that has been nagging at the back of my
brain for a while now. I am a native of southern California, as well
as a college student here, and it has become a joke between friends of
mine from northern Califonia that you can tell what part of the state
someone is from by asking him to name the freeways you can take to get
to a certain place. Southern Californians will say, for example, “Take
THE 5 to THE 55 to THE 405,” whereas those from NorCal will say the
freeway numbers without the “the.”

My question is, what is the proper way to refer to freeways? I know
that it’s a dialectical issue, and regional speech can be kooky, but I
don’t know any solid reasoning supporting one construction over the
other. My inclination is toward my way, not just because it’s “my
way,” but because it seems to me that “the” is needed to turn the
number into a noun, and therefore the name of a road. With the other
way, I want to respond, “You take 5 and 55 what? Bananas and issues of
Seventeen Magazine?” But the defence of it is that when talking about
residential streets, you don’t say, “Turn left on THE First St., and
then a right on THE Lakeside Dr.” Can you shed any light?

Thanks,
NorCal may be “hella cool,” but now you’ve got The Governator

Dear Norc,

It seems like a “when in Rome” thing to me.I don’t think one or the other is right or wrong; it’s just a signifier of where you’re from.Jersey natives going to Mantoloking for the weekend say they’re going down the shore.Chicago transplants say they’re “going to the Jersey shore” or “going to the beach.”It’s not wrong; they’re just not from Jersey.Philadelphians and their complicated rules for which sandwich is called what, same thing; the Midwest and Canada saying “pop,” same thing.

So, I think it’s fine to call the 5 “the 5,” and I think maybe the origin of that has to do with the freeway designation itself — that what you’re really saying, in shorthand, is “the 5 freeway,” which I suspect is specific to SoCal.Again, comparing it to Jersey, which is just as paved and as much of a car culture, we don’t say “the 78” or “the 22,” because we don’t call them freeways or think of them as freeways.They’re interstates or state roads, so we don’t use a “the” — 78 is Interstate 78, or I-78, so that just becomes “78.”

So, I don’t see any “solid reasoning” on either side, myself, but there’s no solid reasoning behind why some Southerners say “I’m fixing to,” while a Yankee would instead say “I’m about to” or “I’m getting ready to.”It’s just a regional difference, and I feel like we should embrace little fillips of locution like these.Correct usage doesn’t necessarily mean homogenized.

You are
honestly the only person who will appreciate the terror of this
situation.

For the longest time there was a spider trapped between my window
screen and my window…door…thing.For a long time it wasn’t a
big deal.It was too cold to open windows and I was just hoping the
cold would kill her before I had to deal.No such luck.So just now
I opened the window…door, trapped her, and let her outside.I
came back to the window sill to clear out the dirt and grime from the
winter and you will never believe what happened.

Bitch got knocked up.

Yes, dear god, there is, what I assume to be, a seed pod of baby
spiders in my window sill.I refuse to do internet research on
whether this actually is a seed pod or whether it’s still able to be
hatched without its mom because there will probably be pictures that
accompany the research.My knowledge of seed pods is limited to
Charlotte’s Web and you know what Charlotte’s Web tells me?It tells
me that this fucker will explode into millions of minuscule teeny baby
spiders.Minuscule baby spiders that can crawl through the window
sill and the window door thing and take over my apartment and make me
their slave.

What do I do about this?I’ve considered getting gallons of Raid and
performing a mass abortion but like I said, I’m dealing with a window
here.All the fuckers have to do is hold their breath for three
seconds and danger’s over.Aside from moving, which, believe me, I’m
honestly considering, what can I do?

Until I hear from you,
Living at a friend’s house

Dear Living,

I must not understand exactly where the Pod O’ Evil is located, because I’d just get a stick, or a spatula I never wanted to use again, and lever the thing out over the window sill and into the great outdoors — or point a hairdryer at it and blow it out, or something.I mean, if it’s between the screen and the window?Just raise the screen and punt Swiss Family Arachnid for the extra point.

If you can’t do that for some reason, call up a non-squeamish friend, offer to treat him/her to dinner if he’ll scoop the spiderlings into a paper bag and take them outside for you, and then when that’s done, spritz the windowsill with Raid to discourage future single moms from parking it there.

Sars,

I hope none of this comes across as too existential, but I reckon you and I are roughly the same age (I’m 34), and I’m curious to know if you share a form of this malaise.

“Jane” was my first love, my high school sweetheart, and my first heartbreak. She dumped me cold when I was 21 (after four years together), and has not wanted to hear from me since. Needless to say, the first few years of my life after the split were consumed with keeping a nervous breakdown at bay. But while my “getting over it” consisted of a lot of ugly fits and false starts, I did eventually learn how to cope, move on and find happiness elsewhere. I’m currently married, have a child, and wouldn’t trade any of it for anything, period.

The thing is, over the last year or so, I’ve endured these blinding moments of temptation with regard to sending Jane a “Hey, what’s up with you?” kind of email. Now I know what you’re probably thinking, and yes, I realize that at best it would be futile, at worst, galactically stupid. As a matter of fact, I’ve had a good long time to think about it, and I’m totally convinced that I don’t have any feelings — residual or otherwise — for this girl. Not only am I very happily married to someone else, but my relationship with Jane ended so long ago, and our respective lives are so far removed from those old days, that I swear it’s almost like reviewing the details of another person’s life. It’s that abstract. And yet it’s not.

There’s a vitality you have in your early twenties that seems to dissipate as you get into your thirties, irrespective of your general level of happiness. It’s not that I’m depressed or feel unfulfilled per se. It’s just…I don’t know, I feel like something essential about me is gone, never to return. And the more I think about it, the more I figure that what I truly miss is not Jane, but the feeling of being 21, and because my memories of her are the closest approximation I have to that feeling, therein lies the crazy desire to reconnect. Realizing that the psychology doesn’t go deeper than that, I recognize the phenomenon for what it is, and I have no intention of contacting her.

But what is it about 21 that I long for? In my more lucid moments, I recall being an immature jackass at that age, and I certainly don’t want to be that person again. So what is it that I think I’m missing? Am I just being childishly nostalgic? It seems deeper than that. It feels like part of me has atrophied.

If I have to put it in the form of a succinct question, I guess I’m asking how I make peace with what’s lost. Is there even a kernel of hope in trying to rediscover that vitality, or is resigning myself to its eternal death the only viable option?

Signed,
Whiner

Dear Whiner,

It’s not vitality, exactly, that you’ve lost.At least, I don’t think so.It’s potential, possibility, that feeling that you hit a new crossroads every day and it’s all a grand adventure.As we get into our thirties and we generally have more and bigger responsibilities, and have made a lot of the big choices, we have to let go of a lot of daydreams and drama because we don’t have the need for them anymore, or the time.

I’ve made that sound rather bleak, I suspect, but that’s not my intent, and it’s not a positive or a negative, really — it just is.I mean, the melodramatic interpersonal kerfuffles I got myself into on a near-daily basis back in college, I look back and I’m like, God, who has time for that shit?Because I don’t, anymore, really, but back then, I did.Things change.

Looking back on 21, at all things you could have become, at all the things you didn’t know and were happier for it, at all the stupid mistakes you made because you could, it’s natural.It’s natural to feel a little wistful for a time when being in love, or being heartbroken, was basically your job, and you never had to put that intensity of emotion aside to deal with bullshit like having the car inspected.

But on the other hand, there have been a couple of black days when having to sit down at my desk and take care of the payroll saved my sanity — that I had a framework to hold me up.So, I think you try not to think of it as something you’ve lost, because you haven’t, really; you still have the memory of that time and that feeling, and you still have potential and possibility in your life.It just looks different from how it did back then, and you try to take it for what it is and enjoy it.No, you won’t come to as many crossroads anymore, but when you’re on a straight stretch, there’s nothing says you can’t cartwheel down it to pass the time.

[9/13/05]

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